Obsidian Dawn
by Jess J
Summary: AU, VH crossover. When Imhotep is awakened the first time, things go differently as another powerful immortal enters the fray, and the Med-Jai send for the one person who ever defeated him.


Author's note: The last thing I need is another WIP. But, this idea would NOT leave me alone, and I am getting into the story now, so I've decided to go through with it. It's an AU Mummy/Van Helsing crossover, taking place in the first Mummy movie, picking up after Imhotep is awakened. The rating will most likely go up to R, but for now it doesn't need that rating. Anyway, please review, reviews are a wonderful thing.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with The Mummy or Van Helsing. That goes to Stephen Sommers and Universal Studios. I love it when everything in a crossover belongs to the same people, makes this so much easier. Anyway, don't sue. Savvy?

* * *

PROLOGUE: THE CAUSE, A WOMAN

Darkness.

Cold.

Hollow.

Darkness.

So often do mortals liken darkness to evil, evil to darkness. They so often confuse the two, see them as one. What they do not understand is, darkness is not evil. It is not anything. It is Nothing. It is a void, an absence. It is merely the absence of light, the emptiness of space, the loss of warmth. Which is why evil loves to dwell in it so.

Evil does not hide in darkness though. Oh, no. For hiding gives the impression that it is trying to keep people from finding it. But everyone knows evil resides in the dark.

Light. That is where evil hides. Only strong evil, powerful and old, can hide in the light. It is seductive and deceptive, beautiful, white lies. It is a false light though. Like the beautiful snow of the Carpathian Mountains. It is cold.

And yet, is the cold so much worse than the heat? The heat of the sun is just as harsh as the heat of the fiercest winter. The light more blinding than the glittering ice before it melts on an early spring day. The cold, when it kills, is merciful. Peaceful. But the heat, fire, it gives agony.

Of course, those who commit evil, they are sent to that eternal fire, is that not right? But those who serve the fire's first victim, and most powerful, vile, and vindictive one, are destined to the cold. To the darkness. To be hollow. To be a void themselves.

Of course, I am the only one who gave myself willingly, and therefore the iciest, the most empty. But soon, I will feel the heat, bask in the light, though it will never warm me, will never change me. I will simply have become another powerful evil that is able to hide in the light.

But first, to destroy the only one who is a threat to me. The only one who could stop me, if he was to find out a way to free himself from the curse he was put under. He is hollow, he is the bringer of pain and suffering. Ironies of ironies, it will be in the same form that was once used as God's judgment millennia ago.

Should he free himself though, should he discover that he, being unwillingly a servant of evil, has a way out, and that Fate is not completely unjust to some, he would then be a threat. He would be even more powerful.

More irony, it seems. The one who never wanted such power in the first place, never wanted his curse, would be more powerful if freed from it. Whereas if I removed my handmade shackles, if it were even possible, I would become nothing but dust.

We are not so unalike though, this unwilling one and I. We were both victims of laws that trapped us, rules that bound us. Systems and holy orders that held corrupt men as gods. We were both powerful and powerless at the same time. And we both discovered the illusion.

But we took varied paths. Similar, yet so different, such different outcomes. Just as we now are. How are existences and souls are changed in different ways from what we used to be, into two new beings.

Yet, our reasons are the same. It is the same cause that led us to this point.

It has been said that it is a beautiful woman who will bring down a powerful man. This is the greatest tragedy of truth.

And now, his defeat, my victory, will be because of a beautiful woman. It is always a beautiful woman. I have known three beautiful women, one more so than the others, one more dear to me than the others. Yet, three I have known. Three brides I have taken.

Now it is time to take a new one.

Verona.

Marishka.

Aleera.

Meela.

* * *

A restless soul, trapped in a decaying corpse, suddenly surged with life as it felt itself connecting with its body once more. Ancient, forbidden words of an ancient tongue were heard, filling the soul with power, with knowledge, with strength.

With purpose.

With a curse.

The words finished the incantation, and Imhotep, high priest of Osiris, roared as his skeleton jerked to life, and he felt the power and purpose in his limbs, in his soul, in his being. He moved and stretched and surged with new, immortal life.

He knew that the plagues were now starting, and he knew that those he had to kill were near, oh so very near. He knew that he would find them, even without eyes and sight, with ears and hearing. He would find them.

He would kill them.

And then he would find the voice that had brought him back, a female voice that had been strangely familiar but not placed.

Anck-su-namun.

Imhotep nearly let out another roar, but instead a sound that could have been a sob escaped an empty, skeletal throat. He could not dare to hope that his love had somehow been brought back to him. But he would bring her back to him. That was his purpose, his true purpose.

Though the curse tried to make him look in other directions, make him focus on other things, he would not. He would do as it commanded, but he would have his beloved by his side. He would have her, and they would be _free_.


End file.
